Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: M. Espinola
The same situation existed when the Nazi death camps were liberated.

No it didn't! Damn, boy, haven't you been paying attention at all?

You're clinging to stereotypes in the face of better information. NO, Harriet Beecher Stowe was NOT accurate in her portrayal of slavery -- it was propaganda, get it?!

If you were a slave, recently liberated, and you spotted the schmuck that whipped & chained you, strolling down the lane, what would you do?

You really don't understand the South at all. LOTS of ex-slaves saw LOTS of ex-masters every damned day for 50 years. But YOU still don't get it!

You saw me post up, up above, that the slave quarters in some of the Texas sugar-cane plantations remained occupied for up to 30 years after the end of the war. You've heard of sharecropping and other arrangements whereby slaves continued to farm the same old acreage, some of them. You know, because I and others on the board have told you, that ex-slaves and their former masters continued to coexist in the same communities they'd always known -- and there wasn't anything like what you're talking about, nothing like the Jewish raiders' mass poisoning of former SS men in one of the Allied-run POW/de-Nazification camps, no mass reprisals, retribution, mass murder, mass mayhem. You're thinking like a schmuck yourself and projecting it mindlessly onto a social situation and culture you obviously don't know enough about to project much of anything onto!

Twentieth-century extremism just doesn't project backward onto the 19th century, don't you get it?

Just damnnnn!

Now knock it off with the snarky crap, okay?

I'm done here.

Damnnn!

2,298 posted on 02/08/2005 9:39:31 PM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2291 | View Replies ]


To: lentulusgracchus
Any method to rid the world of SS death camps butchers was too good for them.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was NOT accurate in her portrayal of slavery -- it was propaganda, get it?!

Propaganda? You know that is totally false. I would expect that line from the ones which state slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War. You know far better.

Backgrounder:

'Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14th, 1811 at Litchfield, Connecticut (nice area). The first twelve years of her life were spent in the intellectual atmosphere of Litchfield, which was a famous resort of ministers, judges, lawyers and professional men of superior attainments.

When about twelve, she went to Hartford, where her sister Catherine had opened a school. While there she was known as an absent-minded and moody young lady, odd in her manner and habits, but a fine scholar, excelling especially in the writing of compositions.'

'In 1832, her father assumed the presidency of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, she followed her family. On the fifth of January, 1836, she married Professor Calvin E. Stowe, a man of learning and distinction. In Cincinnati, she came into contact with fugitive slaves.'

'Stowe was catapulted to international fame with the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1851. . Following publication of the book, she became a celebrity, speaking against slavery both in America and Europe. She wrote A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) extensively documenting the realities on which the book was based, to refute critics who tried to argue that it was inauthentic; and published a second anti-slavery novel, Dred in 1856.'

'The following excerpt is taken from the last chapter of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which very much resembles a sermon. She urges white Northerners to welcome escaped slaves and treat them with respect:'

'On the shores of our free states are emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families,--men and women, escaped, by miraculous providences, from the surges of slavery,--feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases, infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality. They come to seek a refuge among you; they come to seek education, knowledge, Christianity. What do you owe to these poor, unfortunates, O Christians? Does not every American Christian owe to the African race some effort at reparation for the wrongs that the American nation has brought upon them? Shall the doors of churches and school-houses be shut down upon them? Shall states arise and shake them out?'

'Shall the Church of Christ hear in silence the taunt that is thrown at them, and shrink away from the helpless hand that they stretch out, and shrink away from the courage the cruelty that would chase them from our borders? If it must be so, it will be a mournful spectacle. If it must be so, the country will have reason to tremble, when it remembers that fate of nations is in the hand of the One who is very pitiful, and of tender compassion.'

('Path to freedom: Hundreds of escaped slaves sought refuge in this Ripley, Ohio, house on their trip north.' By Renee Sauer, AP)

'The Underground Railroad refers to the effort--sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized--to assist persons held in bondage in North America to escape from slavery. Historic places along the Underground Railroad are testament of African American capabilities. The network provided an opportunity for sympathetic white Americans to play a role in resisting slavery, and brought together, however uneasily at times, men and women of both races to begin to set aside assumptions about the other race and to work together on issues of mutual concern.'

'At the most dramatic level, the Underground Railroad provided stories of guided escapes from the South, rescues of arrested fugitives in the North, complex communication systems, and individual acts of bravery and suffering in the quest for freedom for all.'

Find out how you can list a property associated with the Underground Railroad in the National Register of Historic Places.

'Defiant, brave and free, the great abolitionists Thomas Garrett, William Still and Harriet Tubman, along with hundreds of lesser known and nameless opponents of slavery, formed a Corridor of Courage stretching from Maryland's eastern shore through the length of Delaware to Philadelphia and beyond -- making the Underground Railroad a real route to freedom for enslaved Americans before the Civil War.'

Some crushed lives, while others saved lives. If history were to repeat itself today, what would you do?

2,299 posted on 02/08/2005 11:14:23 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2298 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson